Bat Virus Kills Boy: Will the Public Panic?

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A bat virus has killed an 8-year-old boy in Australia, and
medical experts are concerned that contact with bats may cause
the disease to spread.

But conservationists fear an overreaction to the news may result
in the wholesale slaughter of an animal that performs an
important ecological role.

The boy died after being bitten by a bat while vacationing in the
northeastern state of Queensland. The bat was apparently carrying
lyssavirus, a virus similar to rabies, according to
Agence France-Presse.

Unless treated aggressively after exposure, Australian bat
lyssavirus (ABLV) is usually fatal. Since the disease was
discovered in 1996, only two other people have died from ABLV,
according to
Scoop New Zealand.

"ABLV has proved fatal in all cases reported to date. There is a
need for increased public awareness of the risk associated with
bat contact," Dr. Joshua Francis of Brisbane's Mater Children's
Hospital told a conference of the Australasian Society for
Infectious Diseases.

"In short, people should stay away from bats," Francis said. He
also noted the disease could someday spread from person to
person: "Human-to-human transmission of lyssaviruses has not been
well documented, but it is theoretically possible."

While many animals harbor zoonotic viruses (those that can jump
from animals to humans),
bats seem to be in a class of their own. The mammals can
carry more than 60 viruses that also infect humans, hosting more
viruses per species than even rodents, a recent study revealed.
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Campbell Newman, the premier of Queensland, is taking the news
seriously. "We are prepared to put the health and safety of
Queenslanders before bats and we make no apologies for that,"
Newman told
ABC.

But some environmentalists fear Newman may be calling for a
culling of bats and flying foxes (an order of large bats)
throughout Queensland.

"We always knew that once there was another Australian bat
lyssavirus death of a human it would be very serious for flying
foxes," Louise Saunders, president of Bat Rescue and Conservation
Queensland, told ABC.

"We are just asking people to have a bit of calm and understand
that flying foxes are all around us and we need them — they
perform an ecological role in our environment," Saunders said.

"They perform a very important role; they are our pollinators and
seed dispersers for rain forest and hardwood forest industry,"
Saunders said.

The best way for people to avoid lyssavirus, according to
Queensland Health (the health organization for the state) is to
avoid contact with bats and flying foxes.

Lyssavirus isn't the only virus held by bats that can infect
humans. Recent research suggested
bats are reservoirs for more than 60 viruses that can infect
humans, playing host to more viruses per species than even
rodents do. For instance, bats carry several harmful infections,
including rabies and viruses related to SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome); studies have even suggested they may be
the original
hosts of scary viruses like Ebola and Nipah — which causes
deadly brain fevers in people.

"There seems to be something different about bats in terms of
being able to host
zoonotic infections," study researcher David Hayman, a
wildlife epidemiologist at Colorado State University (CSU), told
LiveScience in February.